ACADA

Wednesday, 14 September 2016

Tell Your Friends To Forget Biafra, Buhari To Igbo Corpers

President Muhammadu
Buhari has urged the National Youth Service Corps members of Igbo extraction to
tell their colleagues that there is no hope of having a sovereign ‘Biafran
State’.Buhari
said this when over 100 corps members serving in Katsina State came to visit
him at his Daura residence on Tuesday.A
statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Garba
Shehu, said the President urged the corps members to do everything to ensure
the unity of Nigeria.Speaking
specifically to corps members from the south-eastern states, the President
said, “Tell your colleagues who want Biafra to forget about it.”The
President said as a young soldier during the Civil War between 1967 and 1970,
he fought hard to ensure the unity of the nation.

He,
therefore, maintained that Nigeria would never disintegrate under his watch.Buhari
added, “As a military commander, I walked from Degem, a border town between the
North and the East, to the border between Cameroun and Nigeria. I walked on my
foot for most of the 30 months that we fought the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War, in
which at least two million Nigerians were killed.“We were
made by our leaders to go and fight Biafra not because of money or oil, because
oil was not a critical factor then, but because of one Nigeria.“Thus, if
leaderships at various levels failed, it was not the fault of the rest of
Nigerians who had no quarrel with one another. So, please tell your colleagues
that we must be together to build this country. It is big enough for us and
potentially big enough in terms of resources.“Those
who work hard will earn a respectable living. I have seen this country, I
fought for this country and I will continue to work for the unity of this
country.”Buhari
hailed a former military Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, for inaugurating the
NYSC scheme in 1973.He said
the scheme had helped to foster national integration by exposing young people
to the uniqueness and cultural diversity of Nigeria.The
President said, “I asked for those from the other end of Nigeria because I very
much appreciate the NYSC scheme and whenever I see General Gowon, I always
thank him for that.’’In his
remarks, Mr. Egbewumi Adebolu, the Corps Liaison Officer in Daura, thanked the
President for the honour of receiving them and making their stay in Daura
memorable.He said
the youths strongly believed in the programme of the President to reduce unemployment
and create jobs for more Nigerians.Adebolu
thanked the President for his personal gifts of cows, bags of rice and cash to
corps members in the community for Sallah celebration.But
reacting to the directive of the President to the corps members, the Movement
for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra said Nigeria had never
been a nation.MASSOB
spokesman, Comrade Samuel Edeson, who spoke in an interview with one of our
correspondents, insisted that all Igbo, including those NYSC members that met
Buhari, were Biafrans.“Every
Igbo man is a Biafran. Biafra has come to stay and Buhari should know that 95
per cent of Igbo want Biafra.“We are
not going to take up arms against the Nigerian government but we will make the
country ungovernable until we actualise Biafra.“There is
no way we will forget Biafra and there is nothing the government will do that
will make us to give up the struggle.“Even if
they continue to oppress and intimidate our members, we will continue to push
ahead with the struggle,” he said.The
MASSOB spokesman advised Buhari to call a meeting of all ethnic nationalities
where Nigeria’s future would be discussed.He said,
“Rather than telling the NYSC members to tell their people to forget Biafra, he
should call the Biafra agitators and other ethnic nationalities to a roundtable
meeting to discuss how Nigerians would continue to live together.”Also
reacting to the development, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo said Buhari should restructure
the country, if he really wanted the pro-Biafra agitation to go away.The
President of the Ohanaeze Youth Council, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, also said
Buhari should set free all detained Biafra agitators, particularly Ben Onwuka,
the leader of the Biafra Zionist Movement.He said,
“Buhari should ask himself why the Biafra agitation resurrected during his
tenure. He should also explain what he meant by 95 per cent and five per cent.“The
people of the South-East are angry and there is hunger in the land. There is a
total collapse of infrastructure in the zone; federal roads are no longer
passable.“The
South-East zone has the highest number of unemployed youths in the country.
Those NYSC members that went to see him will be unemployed tomorrow.“The only
solution to the agitation for Biafra is restructuring. Ohanaeze Ndigbo is not
calling for secession but we are calling for restructuring. The North-West has
seven states but the South-East has only five; it is not acceptable.“If
Buhari fails to restructure the country, we are afraid that those calling for
secession may succeed so if he really wants Igbos to forget Biafra, he should
restructure the country.”-Punch